Her career encompassed radio, theatrical shorts, feature films, television, record albums (particularly with Stan Freberg), video games, talking toys, and other media. Foray was also one of the early members of ASIFA-Hollywood, the society devoted to promoting and encouraging animation, and is credited with the establishment of the Annie Awards, as well as instrumental to the creation of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2001. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame honoring her voice work in television.[3]

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June Lucille Forer was born on September 18, 1917[5] in Springfield, Massachusetts, one of three children of Ida (Robinson) and Morris Forer. Her mother was of Lithuanian Jewish and French Quebec ancestry, and her father was a Jewish emigrant from Odessa, Russian Empire.[6] The family resided at 75 Orange Street.[7] As a small child, Foray first wanted to be a dancer, so her mother sent her to local classes, but she had to drop out due to a case of pneumonia.[8] Her voice was first broadcast in a local radio drama when she was 12 years old;[9] by age 15, she was doing regular radio voice work.[3]

Two years later, after graduating from Classical High School, she moved with her parents and siblings to Los Angeles, near Ida's brother, after Morris Forer, an engineer, fell on hard financial times.[7]

After entering radio through the WBZA Players, Foray starred in her own radio series Lady Make Believe in the late 1930s.[10] She soon became a popular voice actress, with regular appearances on coast-to-coast network shows including Lux Radio Theatre and The Jimmy Durante Show.[7]

In 2007, Britt Irvin became the first person ever to voice a character in a cartoon remake that had been previously played by Foray in the original series when she voiced Ursula in the new George of the Jungle series on Cartoon Network. In 2011, Roz Ryan voiced Witch Lezah (Hazel spelled backwards) in The Looney Tunes Show, opposite June Foray as Granny.[23]

In 2012, Foray received her first Emmy nomination and won in the category of Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program for her role as Mrs. Cauldron on The Garfield Show.[30] She thus became, at age 94, the oldest entertainer to be nominated for, and to win, an Emmy Award.[31] Foray also reprised her role of Rocky the Flying Squirrel in a Rocky and Bullwinkle short film, which was released in 2014.[32]

Foray married Bernard Barondess in 1941.[34] The marriage ended in divorce.[35] She met Hobart Donovan while appearing on The Buster Brown Program on radio. He was the show's main writer and had also written The Buster Brown comic book. Foray and Donovan were married from 1955 until Donovan's death in 1976.[36] She had no children.

On July 26, 2017, Foray died at a hospital in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 99, less than two months before her 100th birthday. She had been in declining health since an automobile accident in 2015.[38][17]